[Page indicators and editorial notes preserved as in original]

...lectualists," we readily acknowledge that these are not things "in-themselves," but only objects of our sensation. In turn, the idealist will agree that among the sensations called the objective world, [142] there is a special thing, a particular phenomenon called subjective sensation, the soul or consciousness. Accordingly, it is perfectly clear that the objective and subjective belong to one and the same genus, that soul and body are made of one and the same empirical material.

For an unprejudiced person there can be no doubt that the spiritual material or, more precisely, the manifestation of our cognitive faculty is a part of the world, not the other way around. The whole governs the part, matter governs spirit, at least in the main, although again the world is sometimes governed by the human spirit. In precisely this sense we must love and honor the material world as the highest good, as the first cause, as the creator of heaven and earth...

If social-democrats call themselves materialists, then by this name they wish to say ||
only that they recognize nothing that goes beyond the limits of scientifically functioning human Understanding, that all sorcery must cease...


THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE

THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION

OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY

("Vperyod," 1877)

[143–147] Priests and professors agree in denying the absolute cognitive faculty of the human intellect, the possibility of attaining unconditional clarity, and they reserve for it only the character of a limited, obedient Understanding...

Professional philosophers have taken a step forward and replaced heavenly science with earthly science; but here they ultimately occupy the same ambiguous position as the "progressives" in politics. The same mixture of mediocrity and ill will that keeps the latter from freedom keeps professors from wisdom. They do not wish to renounce the pursuit of mystery; if not in the heavens, not in holy gifts, then at least in nature there must be something mystical, incomprehensible, in the "essence of things" and in the "ultimate foundations" there must be absolute limits or "boundaries of our knowledge of nature." It falls upon social-democracy to come forward against such incorrigible mystics in defense of the radical unlimitedness of the human intellect.

Of course, there is much that remains uncomprehended—who would dispute this?..

The faculty of the human intellect is so unlimited that with the passage of time it makes ever new discoveries, in the light of which all past learning invariably appears as sheer ignorance. And although I thus defend the absolute giftedness of our cognitive faculty, I am nevertheless filled with consciousness of the limitedness of all people and all ages and, consequently, despite all my presumptuous tone, I am in essence a perfectly modest person...

REMARKS ON DIETZGEN'S BOOK "SMALL PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

Reason, perhaps, holds sway, but only in connection with the ordinary—our five senses and the material objects of the world...

"In this world" no one has ever heard of an intellect that surpassed the human.

But as to how things stand "on that side" with angels, gnomes, and nymphs, history remains silent. And if we even agree with this childishness, if we even admit that on the moon and stars non-earthly spirits bustle about, then all the same these latter, once they bake bread, must prepare their bread from flour and not from tin or wood. Just so, if these supernatural spirits possess Understanding, then this Understanding must be of the same general nature, of the same structure, as ours...

If in the heavens and beyond-the-clouds spheres there exist things of a completely different kind than earthly ones, then they must also have other names: and since we do not know how to speak this language (the language of angels), it would be well to remain silent where the discussion turns to "something higher," metaphysical or mysterious.

Remarkable, but true! Such reasoning seems "unheard of" to "philosophers."

They, following Kant, still prattle on: we can comprehend only phenomena of nature, but what properly lies behind them—the "thing-in-itself," or mystery—is incomprehensible. And yet this mysticism, all this secret is nothing other than a mad idea that these gentlemen have conceived of intellect...

It is true that there exists the incomprehended and incomprehensible, there exist limits to our cognitive faculty; but only in the ordinary sense, just as there exists the invisible and inaudible, just as there exist limits for sight and hearing...

I repeat: an exaggerated notion of intellect, unreasonable demands upon our cognitive faculty, in other words, epistemological ignorance—this is the cause of all superstition, all religious and philosophical metaphysics...

[149] First it was necessary to overcome metaphysics or supernatural ideas so that we could arrive at a sober understanding that our intellect is an ordinary, formal, mechanical faculty...


REMARKS ON DIETZGEN'S BOOK "SMALL PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

...the same time a "critical philosopher," perhaps even a good Christian. In practice we must be extremely tolerant, and undoubtedly no social-democrat will think of dressing the members of his party in some single uniform. But a theoretical uniform must be donned by everyone who approaches science with respect. Theoretical unity, systematic coherence—this is the cherished goal and high privilege of every science...

Social-democracy strives not for eternal laws, institutions established once and for all, frozen forms, but for the good of mankind in general. Spiritual enlightenment is the most necessary means for this. Whether the cognitive apparatus is limited, that is, subordinate, whether scientific investigations yield true concepts, truth in the highest form and final instance, or only wretched "surrogates" over which the incomprehensible reigns—in a word, all that which is called the theory of knowledge is a socialist matter of the utmost importance...

[156–160] Kant is said to have "sufficiently precisely established the boundaries of formal knowledge." But precisely this point we dispute with all our force; on this point social-democratic philosophy completely diverges from professional philosophy. Kant did not precisely enough establish the boundaries of formal knowledge, because with his notorious "thing-in-itself" he preserved belief in another, higher knowledge, in a superhuman, supernatural Reason. Formal knowledge! Knowledge of nature! Let "philosophers" still thirst for another knowledge as well, but they should prove where it is located and what it consists of.

Concerning the actual knowledge which we use daily, they speak with the same contempt as ancient Christians spoke of "the weakness of the flesh." The real world—an imperfect phenomenon, while its true essentiality—is a mystery...

—phenomenon, manifestation. —Ed.


If natural science everywhere and always is content with the phenomenon, why not also be content with the phenomenology of spirit? Behind the "boundaries of formal knowledge" there invariably lurks a higher, unlimited, metaphysical Reason, behind the professional philosopher—a theologian and the "incomprehensible" inherent to both...

But what then is the incomprehensible?—is asked in the aforementioned letter to the editor of "Vperyod"...

And to this question the professional philosopher gives an answer, explaining that "being" as absolute rest can in no way be transformed into absolute movement of thought. By these words, continues the opponent, the boundary of knowledge is defined, that is, the incomprehensible. But does it follow from this that we must deny its existence, that we shall never approach it? Of course not. Every scientific attempt to approach it, to understand it, or at least to feel it, moves us closer to this dark point and sheds new light upon it, even though we may never succeed in illuminating it completely. In the pursuit of this goal lies the task of philosophy, in contradistinction to the task of natural science, which considers only the given and explains only phenomena.

Explains phenomena: phenomenon! Hm, hm!

Thus, the object of philosophy—the incomprehensible—is a bird from which with the help of our cognitive faculty we can pluck individual feathers here and there, but we are never in a position to pluck it completely, and it must eternally remain incomprehensible. If one looks more carefully at the feathers already plucked by philosophers, one can recognize the bird itself by them: here we are speaking of the human spirit. And so we are again at the decisive boundary separating materialists from idealists: for us—the phenomenon of nature, for them—nature is the phenomenon of spirit. And it would be well enough if they were content with this. No, somewhere behind lurks an evil intention to raise spirit to some "being" of a higher order, and everything else to reduce to the level of nothingness...

We, on the contrary, assert: that which under certain conditions can be comprehended is not incomprehensible. Whoever wishes to comprehend the incomprehensible is simply making a fool of himself. Just as with the eye I can only embrace the visible, with the ear only the audible, so with the cognitive faculty I can comprehend only the comprehensible. And although social-democratic philosophy teaches that everything existing is unconditionally knowable, this does not at all deny that there is something incomprehensible. This could be acknowledged, but only not in the ambiguous, absurd "philosophical

REMARKS ON DIETZGEN'S BOOK "SMALL PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

sense" that somewhere there "in the beyond-clouds spheres" again transforms the incomprehensible into the comprehensible. We approach this matter seriously; we know no higher knowledge except ordinary human knowledge; we know positively that our Reason is true Reason and that it is as unthinkable for a Reason fundamentally different from ours to exist as it is impossible for four-cornered circles to exist. We place intellect in the ranks of ordinary things, which cannot change their nature without changing their name.

Social-democratic philosophy is entirely in agreement with "professional" philosophy in that "being in no way is transformed into thought," nor any part of it. But we do not at all consider it the task of thought to transform being; the task consists only in formally ordering it, in finding classes, rules, laws—in short, in doing what we call "knowledge of nature." Everything that is capable of classification is comprehensible, and everything that cannot be transformed into thought is incomprehensible. We cannot, must not, and do not wish to do this, and therefore we renounce it. But we can do the opposite: transform thought into being, in other words, we can classify the faculty of thought as one of many forms of being...

We consider intellect to be just as precisely an empirical datum as matter. Thought and being, subject and object alike fall within the limits of experience. To distinguish one as absolute rest from the other as absolute movement is incorrect from the moment that natural science reduces everything to movement. What the comrade "philosopher" said about the incomprehensible, namely, that every scientific attempt brings us closer to the unknown, even though we may never succeed in achieving complete clarity, applies without any mystification whatsoever to the object of natural science as well—the unknowable. Knowledge of nature also has its unbounded goal, and without mysterious "boundaries" we advance ever closer to the unknown, never reaching complete clarity; and this means that

science has no boundaries...


OUR PROFESSORS AT THE BOUNDARIES OF KNOWLEDGE

("Vperyod," 1878)

I

[162–164] At the "Fiftieth Congress of German Naturalists and Physicians" in Munich in September 1877, Professor von Nägeli of Munich again touched upon the well-known lecture delivered earlier by his colleague from Berlin—Du Bois-Reymond—and delivered a remarkable speech on "the boundaries of scientific knowledge." One must do justice to the gentleman professor from Munich: in truthfulness and clarity he considerably surpassed his predecessor from Berlin, but he still did not manage to rise to the level of his age. He almost clarified the question; but the small, concluding point which he omitted is precisely the cardinal point—it concerns the great chasm separating physics from metaphysics, sober science from romantic faith.

His predecessor Du Bois-Reymond, as is known, wished to prove that such an impassable boundary indeed exists and that belief in any case must be allotted a special domain. It is only to this role of a little refuge for religious romanticism that his paper owes its apparent significance and its dissemination. Since then the zealots of the incomprehensible have been exulting. It is true that Professor von Nägeli is not very pleased with this exultation, but his elevated professorial position does not allow him to conduct the struggle with full decisiveness. Having proved to his predecessor clearly, precisely, and definitely that he did not understand natural-scientific knowledge, he concludes as follows:

"If Du Bois-Reymond concluded his paper with the devastating words: 'Ignoramus et ignorabimus,' then I should like to conclude by expressing a conditional but consoling view that the fruits of our investigation are not merely knowledge, but actual cognitions, containing within themselves the germ of almost (!) infinite

—"We do not know and shall not know."—Ed.

REMARKS ON DIETZGEN'S BOOK "SMALL PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

growth, without the slightest claim to omniscience. If we display reasonable restraint, if as mortal and transitory beings we content ourselves with human Understanding, not aspiring to divine knowledge, then we have the right to say with full confidence: 'We know and shall know'..."

The religious romanticism of Du Bois-Reymond calls all the fruits of scientific investigation merely "knowledge," but not "actual cognitions," to which poor human Understanding cannot attain...

II

[166–167] "As regards the capacity of our ego to know the things of nature, the decisive factor here is the indisputable fact that, however our faculty of thought may be constituted, only sensory perceptions give us information about nature. If we could see and hear nothing, taste or feel nothing, then we would not know at all that something exists beyond us, we would not know at all that we ourselves physically exist."

This is a bold word. Let us hold to it and see whether the gentleman professor also holds to it...

"Our capacity to perceive nature through the immediate sensations is thus limited in two respects. We probably (!) lack sensations for entire regions of the life of nature (for example, for gnomes, spirits, etc.? —I.D.), and insofar as we do possess them, in time and space they touch an infinitesimally small part of the whole."

Yes, nature is higher than the human spirit; it is his inexhaustible object...

...Our capacity for investigation is limited only insofar as its object, nature, is unlimited...

III

[168] We recognize only one, one single world, "that concerning which sensory perceptions inform us." We remind Nägeli of his own words, that where we can see, hear, feel, taste, smell nothing—there we can know nothing...

Versus Kant

The unknowable, absolutely inaccessible to the senses, for us does not exist and does not exist even "in-itself," so that we could not even speak of it without departing into the realm of fantasy...

IV

[171] Whoever is drawn into another world, out of the world of experience into the world of presentiment or deity, whoever only speaks of this, is either a scoundrel or a knave and charlatan...

[173–174] I should like to help the reader understand that which, so far as I know, our professors have not yet understood, namely, that our intellect is a dialectical instrument, an instrument that reconciles all opposites. Intellect creates unity through diversity and recognizes difference in similarity...

"But what is this world, subordinated to the human spirit? Not even a grain of sand in the eternity of space, not even a second in the eternity of time, but only an insignificant part of the true essence of the Universe." Exactly thus speaks the priest as well. And perfectly correct, so long as this is to serve only as an enthusiastic expression of feeling before the grandeur of being; but this is complete nonsense, insofar as Professor Nägeli wishes to say by this that our space and our time are not parts of infinity and eternity, complete nonsense if this is meant to signify "that the true essence of the Universe" is hidden outside of phenomena, in incomprehensible religion or metaphysics...

V

[178] The unity for which Nägeli contends is lost by him as soon as he approaches the "world of presentiment" and divine "omniscience," and Professor Virchow loses it already as soon as he touches upon the distinction between the organic and the inorganic. Still more hateful to him is the connection between man and animal, and the question of the opposition between body and soul seems to him completely indisputable, because their unification could produce in the "head of a socialist" the most terrible confusion and would inevitably lead to the overthrow of all professorial wisdom.

EXCURSIONS OF A SOCIALIST

INTO THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

PREFACE

[180–181] If not slaves, then servants of nature we must eternally remain. ||

Knowledge can give us only possible freedom, which at the same time is also the only rational freedom...

Whoever wishes to become a true social-democrat must perfect his mode of thinking. The improved method of thinking helped the recognized founders, Marx and Engels, raise social-democracy to that scientific standpoint upon which it now stands...

Marx and Engels
